I’ll be signing both books in THE DANCER CHRONICLES at the book-signing event that will take place directly after the reader appreciation event.

If you haven’t read THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE, here’s a bit more about it:

THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE
by DeAnna Cameron

The magic that happens onstage is only half the story. Go behind the red curtain, and follow Pepper’s wild vaudeville adventure…

New York City in 1907 is a wonderland of endless possibilities for anyone who dares to dream, and no one has bigger dreams than young Pepper MacClair, a struggling vaudeville chorus girl who craves the Broadway limelight.

When Pepper must choose between the love of her life and her beloved Chance Theatre, a run-down venue well past its prime and her home for as long as she can remember, she’ll discover real life doesn’t always go according to script.

She’s left heartbroken and betrayed. But as the larger world changes around her and she is pulled into the intrigues of the city’s elite, it is her last hope, not only to fulfill her dream, but to follow her heart.

THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE is a richly drawn historical tale that takes readers behind the scenes of the exuberant, exciting, and often eccentric world of early New York vaudeville and one woman’s romantic journey to find the life she craves and the love she deserves — with a little help from the legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE

(The Dancer Chronicles, Book 2)

The magic that happens onstage is only half the story. Go behind the red curtain, and follow Pepper’s wild vaudeville adventure…

New York City in 1907 is a wonderland of endless possibilities for anyone who dares to dream, and no one has bigger dreams than young Pepper MacClair, a struggling vaudeville chorus girl who craves the Broadway limelight.

When Pepper must choose between the love of her life and her beloved Chance Theatre, a run-down venue well past its prime and her home for as long as she can remember, she’ll discover real life doesn’t always go according to script.

She’s left heartbroken and betrayed. But as the larger world changes around her and she is pulled into the intrigues of the city’s elite, it is her last hope, not only to fulfill her dream, but to follow her heart.

THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE is a richly drawn historical tale that takes readers behind the scenes of the exuberant, exciting, and often eccentric world of early New York vaudeville and one woman’s romantic journey to find the life she craves and the love she deserves — with a little help from the legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

THE DANCER CHRONICLES is a series of stand-alone novels featuring young women destined for passion and fame. Step into their heart-warming stories of love and discovery, where there’s never a cliff-hanger ending and always an uplifiting happily-ever-after.

Happy reading!
DeAnna

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Have you seen the PBS show “Taste of History” with Chef Walter Staib, where he re-creates meals from colonial America? It’s one of my favorites, and it has inspired me to track down recipes from my own favorite era in American history – the late Victorian and early Edwardian years.

My first discovery in that search was “The Myrtle Reed Cookbook,” published posthumously by G.P. Putnam’s Sons in 1916, which pulls together the author’s earlier cookbooks. Books with such charmingly simple and straightforward names as “What to Have for Breakfast,” “How to Cook Meat and Poultry,” and “One Thousand Salads.”

I have been working my way through the book, and one section in particular that caught my attention was one devoted to pancakes. This is Myrtle Reed’s introduction to that topic:

“The edible varieties of pancakes are readily distinguished from the poisonous growths. The harmless ones are healthful and nutritious and grow in private kitchens. The dark, soggy, leaden varieties are usually to be found in restaurants, but have been known to flourish in private kitchens also.”

She goes on to explain the perfect consistency for a batter and the type of pan that should be used (“[a] soapstone griddle is best, but an iron one will do, and many a savory pancake has come from a humble frying-pan”).

She concludes with this cautionary note:

“Batter enough for one pancake should be dipped from the bowl with a cup or large spoon, as adding uncooked batter to that on the griddle even an instant after it has begun to cook will work disaster to the pancake—and the hapless mortal who eats it.”

I found Ms. Reeds’ recipes to be such a delight that it was her version of Sweet Pancakes that I was imagining when they’re mentioned in The Girl on the Vaudeville Stage.

Recently, after mail-ordering some orange-flower water, I set out to make them myself.

SWEET PANCAKES

From the Myrtle Reed Cookbook

Mix two tablespoons of flour with a few drops of orange-flower water and a few grains of salt. Add the yolks of four eggs, well-beaten, and the whites of two. Fry by tablespoonfuls in butter, turning once, and sprinkling with sugar. Or, spread with Jelly, roll up, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

The result?

The recipe yielded 13 pancakes, and I can’t say they resembled anything that I have come to expect of pancakes. I would describe them as thick, small crepes. Also, the amount of orange-flower water was not nearly enough to be detected. Still, the pancakes were good and they went quickly. I had a few with just the powdered sugar, sort of like a French Quarter beignet. And before my husband could even sample them, my picky-eater 3-year-old daughter smeared them with grape jelly and finished them off.

If anyone else gives them a try, I’d love to hear how they turned out for you.

THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE is a richly drawn historical tale that takes readers behind the scenes of the exuberant, exciting, and often eccentric world of early New York vaudeville and one woman’s romantic journey to find the life she craves and the love she deserves — with a little help from the legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

Photos by DeAnna Cameron. An earlier version of this post appeared on March 15, 2012.

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How did I come to fall in love with vaudeville? I blame it on the belly dancers.

While researching the story that became THE GIRL ON THE MIDWAY STAGE, I learned that many of the Egyptian dancers who performed at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair stayed after the fair closed and began to dance in the vaudeville circuits.

That sparked my imagination. I wondered what it must have been like for them, and how did the audiences react? I had to find out, and along the way I discovered so much more.

For example, I thought vaudeville theaters, concert saloons, burlesque theaters and dime museums were all part of the same entertainment stew. How wrong I was!

Just as society was deeply stratified during the late 1800s and early 1900s, so was public entertainment. Vaudeville, at the time, occupied a middle ground between the lowbrow concert saloons and burlesque theaters and the posher opera houses and “legitimate” theaters. It was considered “polite entertainment.”

Despite the rigid divisions between the entertainment venues, however, the theater world was more fluid for the performers themselves. Even the biggest stars of the day—Lillian Russell, Eddie Cantor, Eve Tangua,y and the like—found themselves booked for vaudeville runs between bigger bookings, or when their popularity ebbed.

Yet it wasn’t the headliners who appealed to me as much as the performers who worked at the other end of the spectrum—the show openers and the chasers, and all the acts that filled the least desirable spots on the bill. These were performers who worked long hours in poor conditions for very little pay, and even less prestige, with the hope of one day making it big. They were people who lived on hopes and dreams and promises—and that captivated me.

I also found myself captivated by the idea that at this time in vaudeville’s evolution, before the slick productions that Florenz Ziegfeld,, Jr., and others would go on to pioneer, the magic of a theatrical production depended almost entirely on people: the performers, of course, but also the workers backstage, from the seamstresses stitching costumes to the stagehands who built the sets and then muscled them to their mark between acts.

It was a much more human endeavor than it is now, and that was the world I wanted to explore in THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE. It was a world where people could determine their own success—or failure—as well as the wonderful joys and challenges and heartaches that could bring. I wanted readers to experience this sometimes eccentric and often chaotic environment where the rules of the outside world didn’t always apply, and where individuals—performers and others—were free to rewrite the scripts of their own lives, to reinvent themselves, if they had the courage and the talent to do it. A world, I think, many of would like to inhabit, at least for a little while.

Ultimately, that’s what I came to love most about vaudeville—the courage and determination, the imagination and perseverance of the dreamers and believers who inhabited this world: the vaudevillians themselves.

THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE is a richly drawn historical tale that takes readers behind the scenes of the exuberant, exciting, and often eccentric world of early New York vaudeville and one woman’s romantic journey to find the life she craves and the love she deserves — with a little help from the legendary showman Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

[An earlier version of this article appeared on the Historical Tapestry blog.]

New York City in 1907 is a wonderland of endless possibilities for anyone who dares to dream, and no one has bigger dreams than young Pepper MacClair, a struggling vaudeville chorus girl who craves the Broadway limelight.

When Pepper must choose between the love of her life and her beloved Chance Theatre, a run-down venue well past its prime and her home for as long as she can remember, she’ll discover real life doesn’t always go according to script.

She’s left heartbroken and betrayed. But as the larger world changes around her and she is pulled into the intrigues of the city’s elite, it is her last hope, not only to fulfill her dream, but to follow her heart.

THE GIRL ON THE VAUDEVILLE STAGE is a richly drawn historical tale that takes readers behind the scenes of the exuberant, exciting, and often eccentric world of early New York vaudeville and one woman’s romantic journey to find the life she craves and the love she deserves — with a little help from the legendary Florenz Ziegfeld,

I hope you’ll head over to Goodreads and add it to your To-Read list 🙂